


the rain it raineth every day

by renecdote



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: And some therapy, Angst, Carla makes a brief appearance, Eddie needs a hug, Episode: s03e15 Eddie Begins, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28489749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: Eddie is beginning to hate the rain.Another Eddie Begins coda.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	the rain it raineth every day

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a warm up prompt by connanro on tumblr.
> 
> Title taken from a passage of Shakespeare's _The Twelfth Night_.

It rains for three days. Eddie watches it through the car window after Buck picks him up from hospital, grey and dreary. Then he gets home and watches it through his bedroom window and the living room window and every other window in the house. It follows him into sleep, through half-watched episodes of whatever happens to be on TV, and it’s there when he jerks himself out of nightmares, choking on mud and water and memories.

Eddie is beginning to hate the rain.

Christopher is wet, dripping on the floor, when Carla drops him home after school on Wednesday afternoon. He throws his arms around Eddie and Eddie knows he holds on a little too tight when he hugs back, but he can’t help it. He loves this kid so damn much. Even though he is rain-soaked, Christopher is warm, and two days out of the hospital, Eddie still feels cold.

“Daaaad.” Christopher wriggles away, giggling, nose wrinkled exaggeratedly. “You’re all bristly.”

Eddie rubs a hand over his chin. He’d stared at his reflection (tired, still a little pale) in the mirror this morning and decided that he didn’t have the energy to shave. It isn’t like it matters; he is on medical leave, then suspension for his stunt cutting the rope, so it’s not like he has anywhere to go. Not until Christopher’s show-and-tell presentation on Friday, at least, which means he has one more day to pull himself together. Other than Carla, the only person likely to stop by is Buck, and Buck might comment on his appearance but he won’t _care_.

Carla gives him a knowing (worried) look, like she can see right through him, to all the jagged, taped-together pieces barely holding on inside.

“Thanks for picking him up,” Eddie says to her. _I don’t want to talk about it._

Carla purses her lips. She can definitely see right through him. Christopher is right there though, so she just nods and smiles and says, “Not a problem. Do you need me to stick around? Help with dinner or homework?”

Eddie shakes his head. “I’ve got it, thanks.”

And he does—sort of. He reheats a frozen pasta bake and muddles through Christopher’s homework with him, trying not to grimace too bitterly when they get to science and it’s the water cycle. Typical. Christopher is humming the song as he carefully draws the cycle on a piece of blue paper and outside the rain is beating against the roof, running down the window panes, loud and insistent. Eddie fights the urge to put his hands over his ears.

He helps Christopher in the bath and tucks him into bed and manages to tear himself away from watching his sleeping son after only a few minutes.

Then he goes to the kitchen and gets out the bottle of Jack Daniels hidden at the back of the pantry. He sets the bottle and then a glass on the table. His hand is shaking as he pours a generous two (maybe three) fingers, neat. But he doesn’t drink it. He rests his fingers at the edge of the glass and stares at the amber liquid. He knows guys who crawled into a bottle after they left he army and never came out. He knows it’s not the answer.

He knows it will (probably) help him sleep tonight.

Lightening flashes. Thunder rumbles. Eddie closes his eyes and breathes. More lightening. Is it his imagination or is the rain heavier?

The next crack of thunder is right overhead; sudden and jarring. For a split second, Eddie is back in the helicopter, crashing down into the sand, everything too bright and loud and confusing.

“Dad?”

Christopher’s voice warbles, not quite scared, but a little desperate. Eddie is up in an instant, flicking on the hall light so it spills in when he pushes Christopher’s bedroom open.

“I’m here,” he says, moving quickly to sit on the edge of the bed. “It’s okay, mijo, it’s just a storm.”

“It’s loud.”

When Christopher was younger, he was afraid of storms. It’s another slice of his kid’s childhood that Eddie heard about secondhand, in broken conversations over a terrible video connection, not witnessed for himself until almost six months after he was discharged, when it was just him and Christopher and he had no idea what to do. Shannon was gone by then; and Eddie wasn’t going to ask his parents for help. He hugged Chris tight and let him sleep in the big bed with him and—that helped. He’s pretty sure that helped.

“Do you want to sleep with me?” he asks.

Christopher nods so Eddie picks him up and carries him down the hall. He doesn’t think he can sleep himself—not yet, not with the rain in his head—but he lies in the darkness, Christopher cuddled against his chest, and it’s a little easier to breathe. He can’t help wondering if Hayden is back at the farm, curled up in his mother’s arms, scared of the storm as well. Eddie broke the unspoken rule and checked up on the kid, found out what happened to him after he was taken to hospital; he couldn’t not. So he knows that Hayden is going to be fine. Physically. But he also knows how terrifying it was to be stuck down there.

Safe and content, Christopher sleeps deeply. At some point, Eddie joins him, exhaustion winning out over the anxious beating of his heart. He fights it as long as he can; he doesn’t want to fall into the nightmares, doesn’t want to wake up fighting and accidentally hurt Christopher. He sleeps lightly, restlessly, but—surprisingly—his dreams are only dreams, weird and vaguely unpleasant, but not nightmares.

The next morning he wakes early, to sun shining through the curtains. The ground is wet but the rain is gone. Eddie slips quietly out of bed. He showers and shaves and pours last night’s abandoned glass of whiskey down the kitchen sink. The glass goes into the dishwasher; the bottle of whiskey goes back in the cupboard. He thinks about just pouring the whole thing down the sink, but he doesn’t. He rearranges a few sauce bottles in front of it instead, hiding it from view.

Christopher wakes up soon after and together they start a new day. A better day. Maybe, if Eddie is lucky, it will even be a good day. He thinks he’s overdue for one of those

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are love 💛 You can also find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com/).


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